Yes, this is the same regulator that was tarred and feathered during the banking royal commission for being way too friendly with the institutions it was meant to police. Its recent headline-catching vigilance involved banning Commonwealth Bank's financial planning business CFPL from charging fees or taking on new customers for being too slow to fix its fees-for-no service reparations.

This new "RoCo cop" is now setting its sights on using the courts to take the grey area out of what constitutes general financial advice and what constitutes personal advice.

ASIC was unhappy with the outcome of a case decided in the Federal Court last year and will appeal to the full bench of the Federal Court. It did notch up a partial win after Justice Jacqueline Gleeson agreed that Westpac breached an aspect of the Corporations Act by failing to do all things necessary to ensure it provided financial services efficiently, honestly and fairly. But Gleeson ruled against ASIC on an important issue that goes to the heart of definitions of general versus personal financial advice.

The case goes back to between 2013 and 2016 when Westpac-owned wealth managers, BT Funds Management and Westpac Securities Administration, conducted a sales campaign offering to locate stranded super accounts and move them across to their customers' existing BT and Westpac Securities Administration funds.

ASIC alleged the sales campaign was personal advice - which BT Funds Management and Westpac Securities Administration were prohibited from providing under their licences.

Westpac said this particular sales campaign constituted general advice. The Federal Court agreed with Gleeson.

It acknowledges it is a test case and the first time a court has specifically considered the particular section of the Corporations Act that sets out where the line is drawn between the two types of advice.

"The dividing line between personal and general advice is one of the most important provisions within the financial services laws. It directly impacts the standard of advice received by consumers. This is why ASIC brought the test case and believes further consideration by the Full Court of the Federal Court is necessary to better inform consumers and industry," ASIC deputy chair Daniel Crennan, QC, said.

Those providing personal advice need to clear a much higher hurdle in assessing a customer's individual financial position.

If ASIC is successful in its court appeal it could have a significant ripple effect throughout the advice industry.

It could enable the regulator to take action on other industry players and it could have a significant impact on the methods of selling financial advice in the future.

For Westpac - as for many financial institutions that are under ASIC's new laser-like microscope - these matters form part of a new and more costly focus on regulation and remediation.

ASIC's announcement on Monday somewhat overshadowed Westpac's flat first quarter earnings - compared with the average of the two previous quarters.

When releasing a trading update, Westpac said it experienced respite from remediation charges in its first-quarter result but warned there would be more down the track.

It was an otherwise uneventful result that landed right in the lap of analyst expectations. Not surprisingly, the bank received a positive boost from repricing (up) interest rates late last year - a move that protected its overall net interest margin.

Credit quality remains sound but Westpac noted that mortgage deliquencies were creeping up a little - which was also evident in the Commonwealth Bank's recent results.

With the release of each fresh bank result, the headwinds the industry is facing are becoming increasingly clear.